


Lord John and the Sea Monster

by MistressPandora



Category: Lord John Series - Diana Gabaldon, Outlander & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Creature Jamie Fraser, Double Anal Penetration, Explicit Sexual Content, I'm not even joking a little bit, Kraken!Jamie, M/M, Period-typical hating on the French, Porn With Plot, Sailor!John Grey, Tentacle Sex, all the sex, an inordinate amount of nautical terminology, and feelings, it's tentacle porn, with tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:28:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24871561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressPandora/pseuds/MistressPandora
Summary: When John Grey is swept from the deck of his brother's privateering vessel during an awful storm, he finds himself face to face with the sea monster who's been following him for twenty years.
Relationships: Jamie Fraser/Lord John Grey
Comments: 31
Kudos: 66
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Outlander Bingo Challenge





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iihappydaysii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iihappydaysii/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ASH!!!
> 
> This fills my Bad Things Happen Bingo square: **Concussion**  
>  And my Outlander Bingo square: **Tentacles**
> 
> Please pause, and reread the tags. Yeah, I turned Jamie into a kraken-type thing. There's tentacles. And smut. Don't say I didn't warn you. Ash ASKED me for this, okay? But it's his birthday, so please don't give him a hard time, just leave him some well-wishes in the comments. ;-)

The sea was John Grey’s home. Land was noisy and crowded and terribly immobile. But the sea moved. The ocean was freedom and adventure and romance and the only place he felt whole. On land, Grey found that he languished. On a ship though, he could work from dawn till dusk until his body felt broken by the labor and blistered by the sun and then sleep soundly, rocked into unconsciousness by his swaying hammock on the crew deck of the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ . 

It was after one such day that Grey collapsed into his hammock with barely enough forethought to remove his boots. He ached in every possible muscle, every conceivable bone. They had come upon a storm, not particularly violent, but long. His calloused hands were chafed with rope burn, the result of leaping upon a torn line to save the mainsail coming loose and thus risking the mast. Then the ship had begun to take on water belowdecks, and Grey had taken as many men as could be spared to shove at the bilge pump, leaving his shoulders a knotted mass of misery. But, Grey reflected, hanging his salty wet jacket on its hook near his bunk, the pain was a blessing. They had  _ lived.  _ He was asleep before the swing of his hammock settled into the rhythm of the ship.

* * *

In his dream, Grey was a boy, no more than four or five years old. He was on a seaside holiday with his mother and Hal while their father was away managing some sort of business. They went every summer, splashing in the surf and baking against the warm sand. This was the year that Grey had happened upon a small octopus. A fantastic little creature with shimmering swirls of red and blue, a most beguiling animal, it had been washed into a shallow tide pool and stranded there. Grey found it dodging the beaky assault of a very self-entitled seagull. 

“Shoo! Shoo! Naughty bird!” John cried, racing toward the tide pool, waving his small arms like mad. The gull flapped off with an offended squawk and John knelt at the edge of the pool. “Hello there,” he said, struck dumb by the beauty of the octopus, writhing and stretching in the shallow water. “Don’t be afraid. I brought my pail. I’ll help you.”

John dipped his pail under the water near the octopus. “Come on then, friend,” he said, giving the creature a gentle nudge with his fingertips. It was slick, but not slimy as John had expected, and gave only an initial jolt, allowing John to usher it into the bucket. “There’s a good lad,” he cooed into the pail as he lifted it out of the pool, full of water and fantastical octopus. “Let’s get you back to the sea where you belong.”

His brother Hal, himself a boy of about thirteen, sprinted to him, kicking sand wildly in his wake. “What have you got there, John?” he asked, peering into the pail. “Oh, an octopus!” Hal reached his hand into the bucket but John only let him dip a finger into the water before he snatched it away.

“No!” John cried. “He’s my friend and I’m helping him. Leave him alone!”

“Oh, it’s a he, is it? Let me see it.”

“No!” John pulled his bucket away from Hal’s reach again, the water sloshing. 

“Come on, Johnny, give it here.” Hal made another grab.

Terror gripped John and he bolted for the surf, clutching the pail tight. Hal chased after him, his longer arms easily grabbing the hem of John’s loose shirt and yanking. John fell backwards with a gasp, managing to throw the pail the remaining few feet into the sea. The sound of the splash was lost to the breaking waves.

* * *

John Grey served as master-at-arms aboard the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ , a 28-gun sixth-rate under the command of his brother Hal. She was a privateering vessel, one of those government-sanctioned pirate ships that came with papers and taxes, which theoretically kept the crew safe from at least one government. It was hard work, but the raids were often good fun, particularly against the French.

The call of sails from the crows nest came after lunch, and within half an hour she had been identified as a merchant vessel under French colors. Hal gave the order to make pursuit and ready the guns. 

Their target wasn’t a large ship, and they surrendered with only a few shots fired high into her port side. Grey led the boarding party, as was his custom, and oversaw the off-loading of cargo to the  _ Corsair _ . He held his pistol trained on the French captain as a matter of due course, though the man appeared to be many years Grey’s senior and didn’t make a fuss. 

The sun had begun to dip into the sea when the last of Grey’s men returned to the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ . Something in the water, indescribably large, passed in front of the setting sun as Grey took hold of the rope. He squinted into the light, but whatever it was he had seen in silhouette was long gone into the depths.

* * *

Grey was a boy again, that far-off family holiday at the seaside some twenty years ago. As always, he chased off the gull and protected the red and blue octopus from Hal’s obnoxious grasp. Grey always ran away from his brother, toward the ocean. And as always, Hal caught up to him and dragged him back. This time, though, when Grey slung the pail into the water, he saw the baby octopus tumble out, little tentacles writhing, and splash into the foamy shallows. 

Over and over again, the dream was the same, always the same, always the octopus and the pail and Hal. The dream came to him more nights than not for weeks at a time. It was unnerving. He’d dreamt of that afternoon before over the years, but never so frequently or in such unfailingly vivid detail. Grey began startling awake in a cold sweat after the dream, nearly tumbling out of his hammock. He would look around him at the sleeping deck full of snoring men, certain that someone had been watching him. But every time he was unable to find an open eye upon him. 

The dream repeated itself with such unnerving frequency that Grey began to recognize it as a dream almost at once, to become conscious within the vision. Though he tried, he found he could not alter the events of the dream, only himself. He would peer into the tide pool through the eyes of a small boy, see the little octopus, and think,  _ It’s that dream again, this isn’t real. _ And then the pool was farther beneath him and he was looking at the baby octopus through the eyes of the man he was now. The drive to protect this creature was even stronger then, more articulate, his anger at Hal’s intrusion less definable. His brother remained unchanged and despite the change in Grey’s own physical presence and size, Hal still caught him, still yanked him down.

The next change revealed itself gradually over several nights. Hal still pulled Grey backward by the hem of his shirt. And he still threw the pail into the ocean. And the baby octopus still tumbled out into the waiting spray. But now, rather than waking, Grey sat up in his dream, the sand warm beneath him, and watched the breakers where the octopus had landed. The first time he saw the dream change, Grey had thought it was perhaps some red algae or seaweed floating in the surf. Then he had seen the face of a man rising from the waves. He was unutterably handsome, blue eyes that shamed the ocean itself, a wet mop of flaming red hair that clung to the man’s scalp.

The dreams continued, though now they were less disturbing and far more intriguing. Grey saw more and more of the mysterious, red-headed mystery man. And while the unshakeable feeling of being watched didn’t abate, his curiosity only grew. He  _ had _ to know who the man was, had to see more of him. The startling blue eyes and red hair were joined by the appearance of a straight nose, elegantly made. Then pink lips, cracked from the salt and the sun but perfectly shaped and attractive. Grey saw his strong jaw and throat next. Muscular shoulders one night, bare chest the next. And oh, Christ, that chest. Exquisitely made, the man could have been carved from golden marble and looked at home alongside the statues of the Greek and Roman warrior gods.

At last, Grey saw all of him. He appeared, just as before, perfectly sculpted and breathtakingly beautiful. Grey’s eyes traced the shape of him, took in every detail he could, committed it all to memory. His skin was bronze from the sun, darker in speckled patches that might have been freckles. That is, until his gaze reached the point of the man’s navel. Here the smooth bronze gave way to a different texture entirely, the color darkening to a red, then swirling to blue, both of which reflected the sunlight light iridescent jewels. The man rose further in the water and Grey followed that change in his skin to his hips, which were the same color as the baby octopus had been. He could make out the writhing outline of tentacles below his waist. Grey gasped and his eyes flew open, leaving him staring into the dark, heart pounding in his chest from some unnameable fear or a deeply unsettled confusion.

He did not dream of the creature again.

* * *

Sails on the horizon. Grey sounded the call before the lookout, taking the stairs to the quarterdeck two at a time. Harry Quarry, the first officer, was already at Hal’s side, both of them peering into the distance through spyglasses. 

“She’s large,” John said, shielding his eyes against the sun with one hand. “Another merchant vessel?”

Quarry swore and lowered his telescope. “I can’t see a bloody thing through this glass. I couldn’t even count gundoors.”

Hal squinted through the lens of his spyglass, the wind billowing the skirts of his coat like sails. “She’s French, alright,” he said. Hal lowered his spyglass and collapsed it, stuffing it into a coat pocket. “Navy, one of smaller ships of the line, by the looks of her. She’s headed right for us.” He turned to Grey. “Long nines then carronades. Ensure your men have sidearms. If they don’t sink us, they may board us.”

Grey nodded, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. “Aye, sir.” He knew how to command his guns. Still, even a smaller French ship of the line carried nearly twice the arms that the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ held.

“Shit,” Quarry spat. “If one of the line has peeled off to chase us, you can bet the rest of them know we’re here. I told you we should have sank that last prize.”

“I can’t abide spiteful destruction, Harry, you know that. At any rate, it can’t be helped now. John,” Hal said, voice low and serious and without a drop of arrogant pretense. “We are quite outgunned, and her captain will know us for what we are. If I have to give the order to abandon, I’ll have none of your theatrical bravado. You will take charge and see the men to safety. Have I made myself clear?”

Grey narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Crystal.  _ Sir. _ ” 

Hal nodded, ignoring John’s insolence. “Good. You have your orders.”

Grey leapt down the steps to the main deck, then below to the gun deck, barking orders as he made his way forward. “Gunners at the ready. Look alive on those forward nines. Carronades, you’re next. Load chain shot and prepare to be quick about it, gentlemen. We’ll unleash damnation as soon as we’re broadside. Oi! Get that gun door open! Do you think the French fucking Navy will knock?”

It didn’t take long for the first warning shot to billow from the bow of the French ship. She was equipped with chasers and didn’t need to bother coming about to belch fire at the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ . They were still easily twenty yards out of range of the French ships forward guns, but if Hal brought the  _ Corsair  _ hard about, Grey’s men would have a chance with their own long nines. A narrow chance with their target presenting forward and therefore small, but a chance. If they came upon each other broadside though, the French ship would open fire from both gun decks, sinking the  _ Corsair _ within minutes.

Quarry shouted the warning from the quarterdeck a moment after Grey thought it, and the ship banked hard to starboard. The boatswain’s men caught the wind again and the  _ Corsair _ lurched, charging to meet the French Navy head-on. 

“Forward portside, fire!” Grey shouted. The deck rumbled as the long range gun roared and rolled back. He squinted out of the open gun door through the smoke. The cannonball splashed down just yards from the French ship. “Again! Forward starboard, fire! Forward port, reload and fire.” 

Grey’s forward gunners fell into a rhythm loading and firing and reloading and firing.  _ Boom--boom--boom--boom _ like the nautical beat of a war drum, relentless. They closed in on the French ship, Hal steering the  _ Corsair _ to port so that she would pass the French on the starboard side. Grey shouted his orders over the roar of the chasers, his men a well-oiled machine. The forward guns could have kept time for an orchestra and Grey’s chest swelled with pride. They were efficient and accurate, almost as many shots striking the hull of the French ship as not. Nothing fatal, unfortunately.

But at the same time a perfectly rational dread worked its way into his guts. In minutes the starboard carronades would go to work. They’d have to be lightning fast to stand a chance against a fifty-gun French ship of the line. 

A warning cry from above came an instant before the forward hull exploded, a cannonball tearing through the wood. Splinters and shrapnel flew in all directions. Grey didn’t have time to relay the warning to hit the deck as the ball took out a support beam. A shout of rage and horror came from the forward gun and when Grey looked up, the starboard chaser was down a gunner, coppery blood overtaking the smell of gunpowder and smoldering wood.

“Fuck,” he muttered. Collecting himself, Grey assessed the portside cannon crew. They were all whole. “Smith, forward. To the starboard nine.”

“Aye,” Smith shouted, scrambling to his new post. 

Another ball tore through the hull with a groan of wood and a hail of splinters. The  _ Corsair _ came about, presenting her broadside to the French. It was a bigger target but would let the carronades take a few shots at least. "Starboard carronades, give them a volley. Fire all!" Grey barked his orders, the boards rumbling and the deck filling with acrid powder smoke. He watched through a gun door as the chain shot sailed past their target. “Shit,” he muttered.

He was about to order his men to reload and try again when something in the water caught his eye and made him hesitate. A powerful urge came over him, something like divine intervention, perhaps—which was rubbish—that he could neither name nor explain, and he instead ordered the guns to fall quiet. “Hold! Hold your fire!” 

The  _ something _ in the water was a dark spot, a shadow, absolutely massive. It was so large that Grey was almost certain that he’d imagined it, except he could not tear his eyes away from it. It had no definable shape, and it appeared to come from underneath the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ , headed directly toward the French ship of the line.

Another ball tore through the hull of the  _ Corsair _ and Grey ducked, throwing his hands up to shield his head and neck from the rain of shrapnel and splinters the size of a man’s hand. 

“Sir?” one of the starboard gunners said, a thread of panic in his voice. “Should we not return fire, sir?”

Grey looked up again, squinting through the gun door. The shape was gone. Hal and Quarry both shouted at him from above deck, ordering him to fire again. “No! Hold, I said,” Grey snapped.  _ Why? _ What on Earth compelled him to hold fire? It made no sense, yet he could not make himself give the order to reload.

A ripple of nervous exclamations came from the starboard gun crew, men shoving to get a look out of the doors, pointing and swearing. “What the devil is it?” Grey demanded, pushing his way to the nearest gun door and moving one of his men out of the way.

_ It _ was something very like an enormous tentacle smashing through the main mast of the French vessel, demolishing the rigging in a single blow. Some of Grey’s more superstitious crew crossed themselves or made some other ward against evil. Words like  _ sea monster _ and  _ kraken _ and  _ giant squid _ bubbled up around him and Grey, feeling no fear of the thing whatsoever, watched calmly as another tentacle tore through their enemy’s hul, below the water line. She began to list and sink. The chattering around him grew more urgent, more frightened as  _ whatever the bloody hell it was _ demolished the French ship of the line and dragged her down into the depths. 

If the French captain had ordered his men to abandon the ship, they didn’t have time to execute the order. Within minutes, the mighty ship of the line was little more than a demolished hulk of wood and rope, disappearing into a roiling sea.

The  _ Corsair _ turned again, Hal steering her to flee with the wind. “Stow the guns and batten the doors.” Grey had to give the order three times before it was heard over the thrum of fearful chatter. 

It didn’t make sense. Why were they all so afraid? Whatever had destroyed the French clearly meant the  _ Corsair _ no harm, but why? And how could Grey possibly know that? But he did know it, deep in his bones, next to the certainty that the sun would continue it’s circuit across the sky. He charged up the stairs and emerged onto the main deck, continuing around to the stern. He  _ had _ to see the creature, whatever it was. 

Hal shouted at him to report to the quarterdeck, to explain himself, but Grey ignored him, hands gripped tight to the stern railing, leaning over it. He thought he saw a shadowy tentacle or some other shape arc across the horizon but he couldn’t be sure. The creature was gone, and an inexplicable serpent of loss and disappointment twisted in his guts. Had the creature merely spared them? Or had it intentionally saved them? And, more to the point, _what in the bloody hell was it?_

* * *

The unfortunate truth of life aboard a privateering vessel was that sometimes they would go days upon days without encountering an eligible or worthy target. And unless sea and weather conditions were bad enough to keep all hands busy, the crew—some one hundred and eighty strong—grew bored and restless. And bored and restless men with nowhere to go, no outlet for their energy, were volatile and dangerous. Following what repairs to the hull they could make underway, the officers of the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ did everything they could think of to occupy the men’s bodies and their minds. 

Percy Wainwright, the boatswain, oversaw the thorough cleaning of the entire ship from stem to stern, above decks, below decks, everywhere a man or boy could fit. He ordered men into the rigging with whale grease and small knives to maintain the lines and inspect all the ropes for wear. Others Percy sent over the side of the railing, lines tied about their middles, to scrub the outer hull above the waterline and remove what barnacles and algae they could reach. Every pane of glass had the salt scum scoured off. Each bit and bob of brass was polished. Every last square inch of decking inspected for loose nails. 

The men who weren’t engaged in Percy’s insane swabbing frenzy fished with lines and nets to supplement their ever-dwindling supply of salted pork and hardtack. The Grey brothers, both classically educated, led some of the men through language drills, teaching them French or German or Latin. To hold their interest and keep them entertained, they taught them to swear like polyglots throughout the lessons. They challenged the men to riddles, some recited from memory, others made up on the spot, the men competing for the prize of an extra quarter ration of rum for the most correct answers in a day. Quarry attempted to form a poetry circle, but his bawdy taste in verse was not found to be particularly soothing to anyone aboard the ship and Hal ordered it disbanded within three days.

The  _ Corsair’s _ guns had never been shinier, the munitions stores never so orderly. Every last grain of powder was accounted for, the fuses all in tidy rows. Everything was ready for immediate action that after a week of silence, was beginning to feel like it was never coming again. 

Grey frequently found himself at the railing, staring into the dark water or scanning the horizon. He usually kept an eye open for sails and approaching storm clouds, but now he watched for the creature. The sensation of being watched or followed, the prickling at the back of his neck, had returned after the mysterious destruction of the French ship of the line. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the creature was still nearby. If he just looked into the ocean at the right moment, in the right place, he would see it. He could satisfy his blazing curiosity.

The men had spoken about the creature for a few days after the incident. Most had dubbed it a kraken, and this of course, sparked all manner of ghost stories and old mariner’s tales. After a few days, the fear abated and the mood turned to raucous jokes and bawdy humor, the men taking it in turn to tell the most outlandish version of the story as they could conjure. Grey did not join them, even when specifically invited to do so. Something about the creature’s sudden appearance had left him feeling off balance. It had been simultaneously unsettling and oddly comforting to see that shadow charge the French ship, the impossibly large tentacle smashing the vessel to pieces. 

Sometimes, Grey thought he saw something in the water, an amorphous shape a little ways from the hull of the  _ Corsair _ . But it was always a whale or a shark or a large clump of seaweed drifting in the water, and he would turn away from the railing with a cold feeling of disappointment in his belly. 

The fight broke out on the thirteenth day. Thirteen days was a long time to spend with little to do beyond the limited mundanities of sustaining the ship. One could only be asked to polish the same sparkling bit of brass so many times, after all. Grey did not hear the cause of the fight and he frankly didn’t care. His attention was pulled away from the water by the sound of shouts and jeers and the sickening thud of punches landing on flesh. 

“Enough!” Grey shouted as he shoved himself through the crowd of spectators, pushing men out of the way where they had boxed in the fighting pair. “I said, enough!” The fight was between two men, one of the older deckhands called Quinn and a young boatswain’s mate named Tom Byrd. The younger man’s nose had been bloodied and his lip split, but to his credit he kept his footing and his fists up, refusing to back down from the other. 

Grey interjected his body between the two men, shoving Byrd back behind him as the deckhand swung his fist. Grey did not manage to get his forearm up in time to save himself a blow to the jaw. He spat a mouthful of blood into the water. 

Byrd tried to shove Grey aside and go at the other man again. "Oi! Don't you hit him, you son of a—" 

Grey held him back, turning his back on the deckhand. "That's quite enough, Mr. Byrd."

Tom's entire face went wide with disbelief and fear, one finger pointing over Grey's shoulder. "S-sir, look!"

The crowd of men on the deck had gone silent, and Grey turned to see an enormous tentacle hovering over the railing. It was as big around as John’s thigh, the shimmering color of deep rust on top, fading into a crystal blue on the other side, suckers twitching. Grey stared, as slack-jawed as the rest of the crew, as the tip of the appendage gently prodded at his shoulder, arms, chest. Perhaps he should have been afraid. The men around him were. He could feel their tension, smell the acrid, salty stench of frightened sweat. But Grey wasn’t. He couldn’t have explained it under threat of death, but this creature meant him no harm whatsoever. Furthermore, he was certain that this was the same creature that had destroyed the French ship of the line two weeks prior. He reached his hand towards it, let his fingertips tentatively brush the top of the gigantic tentacle. It was soft, smooth. Slippery but not slimy. The tentacle continued prodding, stroking Grey, the tapered tip of it—about as big around as his four fingers together—tracing his ear, then gingerly touched his lips. He had the inexplicable, unhinged urge to open his mouth, to let the creature slip between his lips. To suckle it, taste it, feel that rubbery flesh over his tongue and in his throat. It was madness, of course, likely the result of too long at sea without benefit of a satisfying outlet for his energy. 

All at once the contact ended, and Grey lurched toward the tentacle, just a half a step. But the appendage approached Quinn now. The deckhand trembled, brow shining with sweat, eyes closing in terror—why in God’s name was everyone so afraid of the creature? The tentacle began at Quinn’s hair, felt its way down to his shoes and back up again, pausing at his hand. The tentacle quivered, then went still. In less than a second, the tentacle stiffened and shot out, knocking Grey back against Byrd, then wrapped around Quinn’s middle.

Quinn gave a horrific screech of terror, and the appendage dragged him back against the railing, then over the side of it. John gasped and dove for a loose line, shoving dumbstruck men out of his way. Somewhere very far away, Grey’s brother shouted at him, demanding an explanation, but John couldn’t answer. All he could do was climb on top of the railing, that line held tight in his hand. But where to dive in? The sea alongside the hull was a tempestuous mess, red and blue tentacles and foamy waves, a terrified Quinn screaming and flailing in the water.

Then he was gone, towed under by the creature that still sparked no fear in Grey. The red and blue tentacles, the shape and shadow of the creature disappeared, shrinking below the surface. Once again, the creature was gone, this time taking Quinn with him, leaving only a few desperate bubbles on the surface of the water.

* * *

Grey climbed into his hammock, sorrow weighing heavily on his heart. He regretted the loss of a man, of course. His altercation with Byrd hadn’t been the first fight that Quinn had started aboard the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ , but it was not on his account that Grey’s heart was heavy as he lied in his hammock that night. It was that creature. The kraken, or whatever it was. It drove Grey mad the rest of the afternoon, through a supper he could hardly eat, stole his attention from his evening duties. It even managed to distract him from Hal’s tirade about what had happened on the deck before Quinn had gone overboard. 

Something about the appearance of the creature bothered John. When he’d laid his hand on that tentacle, when it had poked and prodded him, the contact had been… pleasing? Was that the right word for it? Pleasurable? Christ, that was it. Like the intimate caress of a man. A lover.

Grey covered his face with his hands, the hammock swaying gently with the rocking of the ship around him.  _ Christ, Grey, you’ve gone far too long without a good fuck, haven’t you? _ He slid his hand down the front of his breeches, stroked and tugged his prick. The men often fisted out their own frustrations in the open crew deck, each man’s own hammock an unspoken bastion of willful privacy. And Grey was hard, certainly wanting, but he extricated his hand with an irritated sigh. A quick wank wasn’t what he wanted, wouldn’t do anything but frustrate him more. He wanted to touch and be touched, to connect. Perhaps the boatswain, Wainwright, would be willing to find a quiet corner with him, maybe between the cannons again? But no, that wasn’t what he wanted either. His arousal eventually flagged and Grey fell into a brooding, fitful sleep.

* * *

He’d dreamt of the half-man creature again, only this time Grey had been as he is now, and the dream had nothing whatever to do with that long ago holiday from his childhood. He and the creature—no, it was a man in the dream, his strong legs bare—sat on a beach, watched the tide retreat down the sand. The man was stunningly handsome, a face that could have been chiselled from golden marble, a mess of unruly, salt-stiff red hair framing that beautiful face. Broad shoulders with well-defined muscles absolutely everywhere. A few scars here and there. Acres of skin, naked and unashamed and thoroughly kissed by the sun.

When Grey awoke, it was to the sticky feeling of his own release drying on his skin and a single image torn from the dream. The man laid back in the hot sand, face contorted in orgasmic bliss, his long fingers in Grey’s hair, his uncut prick spilling into Grey’s throat. A deep voice with an inexplicable Scottish accent crying his name as the waves crashed behind him. He still tasted briny seed as he made his way to the galley for breakfast.

* * *

The weather turned bad on the fifteenth day. Storms at sea were dangerous, often deadly, but at least it gave the men something to do besides argue and brawl over inconsequential things. Tom Byrd, whose sweet face was still a motley assortment of bruises, scurried into the storm-tossed rigging with the other mates to secure the sails. Grey watched him, his stomach a knot of worry until the young man was safely on the deck again. He was quite fond of the young man and found himself rather protective of him.

Grey inspected the gun deck and the hold that served as the  _ Corsair’s  _ armory to be sure that everything was properly stowed. It wouldn’t do for the storm to toss the ship and send the cannons rolling about and throwing them off keel. He kept glancing out the portholes or over the railing, searching the choppy blue ocean. Was the creature nearby? Had it left their company the other day after it had taken Quinn from the deck? And what had become of the deckhand? Had he drowned? Or might the creature have… eaten him?

It was a terrible squall. Lightning cut blazing paths across the afternoon sky, which had turned black as night in a matter of minutes. Thunder rolled, lightning striking again and again before the crash of it had faded. The wind might have howled, but there was no way to discern the raging wind from the clamor of thunder. The raging storm was well and truly upon them.

The effort of keeping the ship afloat and upright consumed everyone’s concentration, each man helping as he could, wherever he could, regardless of station. The ocean was furious, foamy waves crashing over the top deck. It was nigh impossible to maintain one's footing with the constant deluge keeping the planks slippery. The water was cold too, the storm carried to them on a bitter north wind. 

Percy, heaving on a line to keep the sheet secure, shouted through the roar. “John! Come take this line. The bilge is jammed, I’m needed below.”

Grey rushed to Wainwright’s side, took the line from him, and a gust of wind nearly pulled him off his feet. Percy clapped him on the shoulder and stumbled toward the stairs, leaving John to fight with the line. The rope tore at Grey’s palms, bit into the callouses there. The muscles in his back were sore, arms trembling with fatigue from so long battling Poseidan himself. At last, Grey tied off the line.

In a surreal moment of personal calm, Grey’s eyes scanned the deck from bow to stern. Hal and Quarry, working together at the helm. Young Byrd taking charge of a group of Grey’s gunners, putting them to work with an air of command that made Grey proud.    
  


The deck lurched beneath his feet, sending anyone who wasn’t holding onto something to sprawl, including Grey. He landed hard, the air thrown from his lungs. He gasped, got a mouthful of seawater, and coughed. The salt burned his nose, his throat, his ears. His vision went black around the edges and blind panic gripped his heart. 

Drowning. 

Jesus Christ, he was drowning on the deck of the  _ Corsair _ . Grey coughed, sputtered, gasped. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t tell if the pounding he heard was thunder or waves or his own desperate heart.

The wave crashed into him like a cannonball, a wall of icy cold water that rattled his bones. It carried him, still not fucking breathing, slung him against something solid. Pain exploded in the back of his head, white light flashing before his blinded eyes. Then the horrific sensation of falling,  _ down, down, down. _

The cold sea caught him, squeezed the life out of him, the last of his awareness.

Everything went wet and inky black.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a strange sensation, to die. To drown. To feel one’s body operate exactly as it is meant to, only to be foiled by the conditions of one's immediate environment. In Grey’s case, to be in the water instead of the air. 

He would have expected the hereafter to be drier, though. And perhaps colder. Or much, much hotter, depending on his soul’s trajectory. Grey laughed at the notion that some omnipotent entity had enough time on its hands to direct whatever passed for Grey’s immortal soul. The laughing hurt.

It hurt.

Death wasn’t supposed to keep hurting after it was done. Was it?

Grey cracked his eyes open and a bright afternoon sun jabbed him there, sending more pain directly into his skull. Grey clamped his eyes shut again and groaned.  _ What in the bloody fucking hell? How am I alive? Why? _

Christ, it hurt. Everything hurt. From his throbbing head clear down to his bare feet and everything in between. He groaned. That hurt too. Resigning himself to the unfortunate conclusion that he was, in fact, still alive and should therefore endeavor to stay that way, Grey shielded his eyes with one hand and opened them a crack. Blue eyes, as deep and fathomless as the ocean, stared back at him from a distance of mere inches.

"Fucking Christ!" Grey shrieked and scrambled backward. Unable to get purchase he flailed in the sand until a strong hand came down on his thigh. The grip was firm, reassuring. Oddly familiar. Soothing, even. Grey got a handle on his fear and blinked until his eyes adjusted to the sunlight so he could look at the man.

The sun shone over a shoulder length mane of fiery red hair, curling and wet. His face might have been lovingly carved by an artist of angelic talent. Intelligent eyes, a straight nose. Strong jaw and full rosy lips that Grey wanted to feel against his. Below that, powerful shoulders, muscular arms, and a bronze sculpted torso that disappeared into the foamy surf.

"Dear God," Grey gasped. "I'm dreaming. Or I am dead."

Those sinful lips turned up in a smile. "Nay, ye're no' dead. Or dreaming. Ye are safe and ye are whole."

Grey blinked at the man and sat up very slowly, his head protesting and pounding all the way. He hissed and pressed one palm to the top of his head, just to make sure he felt hair and scalp rather than his exposed brain. That part of him appeared to be intact at least. "'Whole' might be a stretch." Grey turned to scan the beach behind him. It was little more than a sandbar, no landmarks or vegetation to give him any clue as to his location. The horizon was likewise desolate. “Where are we?”

“Land,” the man said, tilting his head to one side like a curious bird.

“Barely,” Grey muttered, fixing his gaze on the man again. It was him, no mistaking it. The man from that last dream, the one he could taste the next day. And that man had the same face as…

A heavy weight eased itself over John’s leg, waves washing over him to his hips. He looked down to see a tentacle, its flesh a swirling of bright red and blue, laid across him. It was as big around as the man’s arm, the same coloring as the tentacle that had touched him aboard the  _ Discourteous Corsair _ before it had taken Quinn. 

In a daze, John laid his hand atop the tentacle, felt it shiver, the suckers underneath tugging at his soaked breeches. He followed it, tracing it with his hand until he reached the man’s body. Only then did Grey see what he’d already suspected—this man was the creature from his earlier dreams. Beneath the water sprawled several writhing tentacles, the appendages all coming together where the man’s hips should be but weren’t. The blue and red flesh gave way to that tanned human skin where a man’s navel would be.

“Ye ken me,” said the creature. “And I ken you, John Grey.”

Grey blinked, stunned. “How? Who? What?” He shook his head, hoping for a single question to settle to the front. “Why are you Scottish?”

“Ah, weel. I’m no’ so sure. I dinna think I am,” he answered, drawing a finger down the bridge of his nose. 

“But your accent…” Grey began, realized he had no idea where he was going with his line of inquiry, and shut his mouth.

The creature gave him a sideways look, one ruddy brow arching in skepticism. “I’m half-man, half-octopus, John Grey. Do ye think I ken why I speak this way? Or why I speak at all? Do ye think I ken a lot of others like me that I could ask?”

“Are there? Others like you?”

The creature shook his head. “I dinna think so. If there are, I’ve never met another.”

Grey realized his hand was still on the creature’s tentacle, in the vicinity of what might have translated to his thigh. If such creatures had thighs. It was all so very confusing, but John took his hand away to be polite. The tentacle did not move from his leg. "Were you… cursed?” Grey shook his head, regretting the motion instantly. “Christ, I have gone mad if I'm seriously asking that question." 

The creature gave Grey another puzzled look. “What does ‘cursed’ mean?”

“I mean did someone—or something—change you into...whatever you are? Incidentally, what  _ are  _ you?”

“Jamie,” he said, beaming. “At least, I think so. One of the first things I remember is a voice telling me that is what I’m called.” He frowned, the expression changing his entire face, bringing a darkness to his beautiful eyes. “As for the change, I dinna ken that either.”

_ Bloody hell, Grey, you really have gone round the bend. You probably have a concussion and you are clearly delirious. _ But the mystery was too intriguing, and he couldn’t help but press on. Like so many things over the past few months, Grey couldn’t explain why, didn’t understand it, but he  _ had _ to know. “Alright. Well… did you start life as you are? Or as a man, like me? Or something else?”

Jamie laid a wet palm against Grey’s cheek. “Life began for me when ye pulled me out of that tide pool. When ye were but a lad.”

John touched the back of Jamie’s hand, held it to his face and leaned into the contact. The water was cold, but where their skin connected was like tropical sunshine. “Tide pool?”

“Ye dinna recall?” Jamie’s brow furrowed, his lips turning down in an image of regret and rejection. “Ye were but verra young. And ye rescued a wee octopus from a gull that wanted to make him its dinner.”

The memory crashed over Grey like surf. The seaside holiday, the seagull by the tide pool. Scooping a tiny blue and red octopus, so lovely and helpless, into his pail. Throwing it, pail and all, into the ocean before Hal could do something horrid. The urge to protect that creature had been so powerful that, even at such a young age, Grey couldn’t have ignored it. Seeing that baby octopus safe had been a  _ need _ , just as surely as breathing. 

Jamie was very close now, had inched toward him silently, two more tentacles draped over Grey’s legs. John swallowed hard, his mouth gone dry. “That was twenty years ago. How do you know that was me?” he asked.

Jamie smiled. “So you do remember. I know yer face. Ye still have the same eyes ye had then, full of wonder. And kindness.” The wet, slender tip of a tentacle caressed Grey’s temple, traced the laugh lines there. “Time has touched ye, John. But ye’re still the same. I’ve followed ye since that day, tried to keep ye safe. We are connected, the two of us. I always ken where ye are.”

_ Surely he wasn’t suggesting… _ “Are you saying that it was you? That sank the French ship of the line?” 

“I dinna ken what a  _ French _ is, but I did sink a ship, aye. Ye would have died if I hadna done it.”

Grey pulled back and Jamie dropped his hand from his face. “And you took that man from the deck of the  _ Corsair _ ?”

Jamie’s eyes went dark and narrow, furious. “He hurt you. I smelled yer blood.” A tentacle wound its way around Grey’s bare wrist, up his arm, the suckers grasping and pinching his skin. “I dinna always appear as I am now. When I am in the deep ocean, I’m much larger. The monster. But here, with ye in the shallows, I can be this. I change into what I need to be.” A shadow of doubt crossed his handsome face. “Do I frighten ye, John?”

“How do you know my name?” 

Jamie smiled and touched one finger to the center of John’s forehead, then over his heart. “I ken ye, John. I can always hear ye. I ken who ye are and where ye are and how ye are. Always.” Jamie drew back again, one of the tentacles on his legs retreating. “Ye are frightened of me.” The tentacle around Grey’s arm slithered away, the touch lingering and Jamie’s face regretful, broad shoulders hunched. “I’m sorry, John. I willna trouble ye anymore.”

“No!” Grey’s hand shot out and grabbed onto Jamie’s wrist, the other closing around a tentacle that he had no chance of actually keeping hold of. “No, I’m not frightened of you. Even when you took the man from the deck and sank that ship, I wasn’t afraid. Please don’t go. Jamie, stay.” 

Jamie froze, earnest eyes fixed on Grey’s. “Ye’re certain?”

Grey rose up on his knees in the surf and held tight to Jamie’s wrists. An insane impulse ran through him, impossible to ignore. Jamie’s lips were wet and tasted of seawater. And the connection was immediate, visceral. It took a moment, but only a moment, for Jamie’s surprise to fade away. For him to kiss back, his tongue slipping between Grey’s lips. It was similar to a human tongue but longer, more dexterous. It traced the sharp points of Grey’s teeth, wormed its way over his own mundane tongue. The tip of it just barely reached the edge of Grey’s throat. The sensation was utterly bizarre, but the effect was superbly decadent, and a thousand insane and deviant thoughts barreled through his mind.

All at once, Grey realized that  _ this  _ was what he’d been craving. That fitful night of lust-filled dreams, it had been Jamie he saw, of course, though the dream version had appeared as a man. It had been Jamie’s tentacle that had touched him aboard the  _ Corsair _ , that he’d wanted to take into his mouth. The writhing mass of appendages enveloped Grey’s legs and hips and stomach. It felt like far more than eight as they twisted and squirmed over him, suckers grasping his clothes and what exposed flesh they could. Grey did not stop to count them. 

At last they pulled apart. Jamie’s face was a symphony of emotions, mostly some variation of  _ lust _ or  _ desire. _ His eyes had closed, lips swollen and pink and lovely. “Oh. John,” he gasped. “Could we do that again? Please?”

If Grey stopped to think about this he might say no. “Oh, why the bloody fucking hell not.” He struggled with his shirt, wrestled to get the wet garment out of equally wet breeches. With a mighty German swear, he finally got the thing over his head and tossed it behind him. He did not care in the slightest where it landed as long as it was  _ off _ . 

Jamie blinked in surprise, stared at John’s bare chest. A grin lit up his face, eyes sparkling with delight. “I didna ken ye looked like me under that. I didna ken it came off.” His hands settled on either side of John’s chest, fingers tripping lightly over muscles and scars.

His joy was infectious and Grey couldn’t help smiling too. “It’s called a shirt and it’s a damned nuisance. I’m afraid that may be where our similarities end, however.” The tip of a tentacle traced the few scars and scratches spattered across John’s chest, sending delicious tingles through him. Jamie slid his tentacle over Grey’s nipple, the suckers tugging at the sensitive flesh there. He shivered under the attention. “Sweet Jesus.” He shook his head. “Fucking Christ. I’ve lost my entire mind. Back up a minute?”

Jamie arched an eyebrow at him but moved backward, giving Grey space.

Grey wriggled out of his breeches with more gratuitous obscenities, this time in French, just kicking them off and into the surf. He was probably stranded on this sandbar for good, who bloody cared about breeches? He’d be dead in a few days anyway.

Jamie watched his every move with rapt attention. Once John’s breeches were out of the way, his tentacles swarmed over Grey’s legs again. His suckers felt like dozens of small mouths, touching and kissing his flesh, leaving Grey shuddering and his cock hard and twitching. “Now we can do the thing with our mouths again?”

“Kissing, it’s called.” Grey grabbed Jamie’s wrist and hauled him closer, crushed their mouths together. Jamie’s strange tongue swam through his mouth again. He pulled back and looked into Jamie’s eyes, deep blue as could be and so very trusting. There was that connection again, electric and magnetic and  _ absolutely absolute _ . “You can touch me wherever you like, however you like. You’ll stop if I ask you too, yes?”

“Of course, John. I would never hurt you.”

Grey nodded. “Good.” He fisted his hand in Jamie’s wet hair and kissed him again, yanking them close until their chests were pressed together in a tight line. Jamie’s tentacles encircled John again, the writhing mass of flesh deliciously erotic. The tentacles crept up John’s back, over his arms. They wrapped around his biceps and dragged him back, laid him in the sand, the tide only coming as far as his knees now. Two of them cradled his head, the tip of one tracing the shell of his ear, dipping inside a tiny bit. It was an odd sensation, but pleasurable. He moaned into Jamie’s mouth.

It might have been simpler to catalog the places on Grey’s body that were  _ not _ receiving a great deal of tentacle attention. Jamie was everywhere, almost literally  _ everywhere _ all at once, his suckers leaving decadent little kisses all over Grey’s body. John gave into it, let himself succumb to the sensation, and moaned. 

“Ye’re fascinating,” Jamie said. “I like to look at ye and feel ye.” A tentacle wound around each of Grey’s legs and eased them apart, leaving him feeling exposed and vulnerable. But safe. With Jamie, he felt safe, just as he had on the  _ Corsair _ . 

A tentacle wrapped around Grey’s prick, coiled about it. John threw his head back and cried out, “Jamie! Oh God.” The feeling was so foreign and incredible and his cock leaked. Another slippery tentacle teased between his legs, at his entrance. “Fuck, oh yes.” The appendage slithered inside of him, stretched him, filled him. 

Language left Grey then, and reason. The tentacle around his cock twisted, the one inside his arse squirmed and found all the luxurious places within him that sent lightning bolts of pleasure charging through his frame and left him trembling. It was so very fucking much and Grey opened his mouth, to groan or cry out, or speak. He didn’t know. But another tentacle passed through his parted lips, filled his mouth and found his throat. He suckled it, briny and with a rubbery texture, the suckers teasing his tongue. Everything writhed and squeezed the pleasure from Grey’s body. He wanted to cry out, to give into the ecstasy, but the tentacle in his throat prevented it. 

Another one teased the cleft of Grey’s arse, teased the burning flesh there where he was already spread open. John whimpered, the sound of it lost to the roar of the surf and the tentacle in his mouth, a whisper of air passing through. Grey should be frightened but he couldn’t, not with Jamie’ looming over him, watching every little thing about him. 

That second tentacle pressed slowly, so slowly, inside John. He made a noise that had no name, nothing to describe it beyond debauched rapture. It was too much.  _ Too much. _ He couldn’t take it, there was no way. One tentacle down his throat, two in his arse, and one coiled around his prick convulsing in just the right way.

John’s cry was muffled by the tentacle in his throat as his orgasm crashed through him like the wave that had thrown him from the  _ Corsair _ . Jamie bent to lap up John’s seed as it spilled in a thick spurt. 

Jamie made a humming noise like a connoisseur savoring a particularly fine vintage. “John,” he murmured, still licking his own tentacle clean, suckling the head of Grey’s prick. “Oh John, ye are so beautiful like this. Can ye do it again? All I want is to see ye like this, over and over and over.” 

The tentacle retreated from Grey’s mouth, replaced by Jamie’s lips and tongue. He swallowed down all of John’s delirious moans and whimpers. Grey felt wrung out, entirely spent. Stretched, used, sated. Boneless in the most spectacular way. Jamie pulled his tentacles out of John, stroked them down his legs. The loss of it, the emptiness made him want to weep. 

Jamie laid down atop Grey, wrapped his arms around him, kissing his lips and cheek and jaw. “Stay with me forever, John. Please. Dinna leave me. I can care for ye. Please.”

“Oh Christ,” Grey said. His voice croaked from the rough use of his throat. “Jamie, oh God, Jamie. Just hold me. I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted to.”

“I’ll keep ye safe. I promise.” Jamie draped his body over Grey, wrapped his arms around him, and held him tight.

Grey let out a glutted kind of groan. “Please keep me. Safe or not, just keep me, Jamie. I need you.”

Jamie kissed him slowly, tentacles twitching and convulsing against him. “Ye’re mine now, John. I claim ye for my own.”

“Yes,” Grey agreed, tumbling headlong toward oversexed unconsciousness. “You have. I’m yours. Thoroughly ruined for anyone or anything else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, sound off. Who made it through? *insert grimace here*


End file.
